Diablo 3′s Australian servers are now online – and iiNet group customers get the fastest access

iiNet and games.on.net have negotiated something special for Diablo 3 playing customers.

Diablo 3 players across Australia have seen amazingly low pings in the last day or two, leading many to suspect that Blizzard has finally installed Australian servers — a fact officially confirmed tonight at a Blizzard event in Sydney.

That sounds like great news already, but it’s about to get even better…

Blizzard and games.on.net have negotiated a peering arrangement for iiNet customers.

What does this mean? It means that we’ve set up a behind-the-scenes system to ensure that Diablo 3 players on iiNet, Internode, Adam or any of our other ISPs get faster, prioritised traffic to these new servers.

These new servers are located in a data centre in Sydney, and are now fully scaled-up and operational. It’s the first time that the company has ever hosted server in Australia, and games.on.net and iiNet are here to help you make the most of it on day one. You’ll automatically switch to them when you load up the game, but don’t worry — you’ll still be able to play with your friends in the Americas and beyond.

Everything — friends lists, gold, items –will remain exactly as it was. The only difference you’ll notice is a faster ping, and an even faster one if you’re with us here at iiNet.

What about my hardcore characters?

Blizzard acknowledges that playing a hardcore character with bad latency is frustrating, and so they’ve ruled that hardcore characters from ANZ can only play on the Australian servers.

What about Blizzard’s other games?

Unfortunately, in typical Blizzard fashion, the company is staying very tight-lipped about its future plans, and we were unable to sweet-talk any further information out of its people (but not for lack of trying).

The upcoming Diablo 3 expansion Reaper of Souls goes live at 3PM Sydney time next week, on March 25. Read all about that here, and see it in action here and here.

With faster traffic to Diablo 3, quota-free downloads from Xbox LIVE and Steam, and even more on the way, we’re very proud to proclaim that iiNet is the number one ISP for gamers in Australia.

Annoyed that this wasn’t done 2 years ago and it’s only after 2 years of complaining about latency that something was done (with nothing but silence from Blizzard).

Pessismist in me says this wouldn’t have happened if not for Heroes of the Storm. Blizzard would be competing with DotA2, LoL and HoN that have local servers. D3 is the initial test and they can say they’re looking after their ANZ base…

I said I’d go back to D3 if we got servers so it’s downloading now. :p

Would be nice in WoW where latency actually matters … not so much here, but it’s better than nothing I guess. though I don’t think our little region has enough players to sustain its own little WoW bubble.

It is good news but… These AU servers could disappear as quickly as they appeared. I smell a ploy to sell as many of their D3 expansion packs as possible and then drop the AU server to save money down the track.

Makes me ask the question (as others have) as to why don’t they have AU Wow servers? (and the only answer I can think of is to save money.)

It is good news but… These AU servers could disappear as quickly as they appeared. I smell a ploy to sell as many of their D3 expansion packs as possible and then drop the AU server to save money down the track.

Makes me ask the question (as others have) as to why don’t they have AU Wow servers? (and the only answer I can think of is to save money.)

This would not surprise me however Blizzard is at least a little better now it is owned by themselves. I don’t know as I don have Diablo 3 but someone I know told me the last Diablo 3 patch made a lot of good changes which is a step down the right path.